


with me to the end; ATEEZ

by arrowthroughtheheart



Series: apocalypteez [2]
Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Apocalypse, Canon Timeline, Character Death, Far Future, Flashbacks, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Post-Apocalypse, Sequel, Timeline What Timeline, Yeosang's POV, based on the seven second before death theory, i guess, idk - Freeform, predebut everyone, predebut woosang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:47:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23695678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arrowthroughtheheart/pseuds/arrowthroughtheheart
Summary: And then he’s back at the shore, where it all started. His eyes are trained on San’s face, still serene and quiet, now turning ashy grey and blue-ish. The sun is still up, shining on their faces and blinding Yeosang momentarily, and he realizes for a split second that he’s lying on his side, one of his hands underneath San’s rigid body and the other still hugging his friend close. San’s sleeve is clad in the blood Yeosang has been coughing out, and the sound of waves hitting the shore is lulling Yeosang closer and closer to the sleep he’s been craving for months now.When he opens his eyes again, he knows exactly who he wants to see.
Relationships: Choi Jongho/Kang Yeosang, Choi San/Kang Yeosang, Jeong Yunho/Kang Yeosang, Jung Wooyoung/Kang Yeosang, Kang Yeosang/Kim Hongjoong, Kang Yeosang/Park Seonghwa, Kang Yeosang/Song Mingi
Series: apocalypteez [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1706425
Comments: 20
Kudos: 46





	with me to the end; ATEEZ

**Author's Note:**

> this whole fic is a sequel (though unofficial, as in you can think this is canon to the first one, or not. it is up to you) from meet again;ATEEZ that i wrote earlier this year, and I think you'd understand this better if you read that before you read this, but hey, i can't stop you. the first work of this particular story is in the series 'apocalypteez'.  
> .  
> inspired by the whole 'in seven seconds before your death, you'll re-live your entire life once again' theory and a little bit of the lyrics from illusion.

Even the people he doesn’t really know would argue that Yeosang is, in fact, decently quiet. Especially compared to his loud and boisterous group of friends he’s found a family in, and he used to be around them all the time.  _ Used to. _

The days that gone by his fragile memory in a flurry of bad instances piling up upon each other feels somewhat fresh in his mind, as if every time he turns around he’ll see them again, still hanging off of each other with crackling laughter and a simply plain joke their managers would’ve frowned upon - if he made it out alive to hear said joke. But they’re all merely an illusion, Yeosang concludes, irony dawning upon himself once he relives once more all the days where he’s sat in a recording studio with a copy of that exact song in his hands, studying its content just in case he forgot what Hongjoong just told him to do a few moments before then. Yeosang never knew the in-depth meaning of the word ‘illusion’ before, but he feels like right now, he has to learn to live with it in case even a few seconds worth his life could be leading somewhere a little better. Did Hongjoong really understand what the word illusion meant when he wrote it all those times ago? When they were just decently living with a good roof over their head, not freezing every night with sore, cramped muscles and a never-stopping adrenaline rush just in case there’s other people nearby, wanting to take away the only few things they have left?

Few things he has left?

Yeosang looks over to his right, finding his hand splayed out beside him covered by the dirty sand of the beach. His left hand is numbed from gripping on San’s side, which he’s still doing even until the other is rigid and cold, unmoving with his eyes shaped into an eternal last crescent smile. Yeosang wished he’d said or do something a little faster. But wishing is unnecessary to do, especially in times like this.

He coughs, retching like a cat in need to throw up a ball of its own fur, forcing himself to sit up to lessen the pain caused from the sand-papery texture his throat is turning into. He can  _ smell  _ the metal tinge of blood, but his eyes are a little bit too unfocused to care in the moment. If Yeosang is able to see, he’d notice the splatter of blood running down from the sides of his lips, trickling down to his throat - and he would’ve been scared for his life. But he didn’t see, and his focus is now back on San.

How long has it been?

Not that long, obviously, since Yeosang feels no hunger or thirst, or anything of the sort. The sun is still up in the sky, too, which meant it hasn’t been that long since Yeosang stopped sobbing beside his friend’s lifeless body. But he can never be so sure. It could just be longer than that, instead. Yeosang feels his fingers twitch underneath San’s body, the numbness reminding him that he’s been staying in one position for too long. 

The trail where his tears were on his cheeks have now dried, and Yeosang can feel the stiffness and a sting of pain when he scrunches his nose up while his sleeve swipes his damp cheeks over. San looks no different, and Yeosang wonders for a while about his science knowledge and how fast San should’ve turned a slightly different colour by now, especially since his friend died being unable to breathe. Yeosang curses his younger self for not paying more attention to his science class before his eyes are caught on a herd of crows, looking down at them from a nearby tree. Some of their heads are tilted, their entirely dark black eyes looking at the two bodies of men laid down on the shore. Yeosang scoffs, feeling slightly offended.

“San, we can’t be here. The birds will think we’re fucking dead-” he freezes on spot, feeling the numbness on his hand spreading into every inch of his being like an electrocuting zap of awareness, and he looks down on Choi San.  _ He was talking to a dead man.  _

And it’s not like he died seven weeks ago that would excuse why Yeosang forgot immediately, being drowned in tears for so long that some part of his rewired brain chose to think that San is alive and he’d converse with him, Yeosang thinks while rising up on his feet, eyes still trained on San before it flickered back onto the herd of crows. A shiver runs up his spine and he feels his fingers twitch. What is  _ wrong  _ with him?

Yeosang feels like he’s floating, as if his surroundings were a fake illusion people have created to torture him and him only. His eyes casted down on the cloudy, grey sky - where did the sun go? - and onto the rolling tides, with the ocean darker than the sky since there’s no light it would reflect. He hears a loud buzzing noise, as if a thousand flies are about to fly towards his direction, and for a second the defensive nature he had to train over the years returned and his feet twitched for him to run away, but then he crouches back down, throwing one of his hands over San’s body that grew colder and colder in every moment as if that would protect the other from the attack of the bugs- wait, wait.

He looks up from his squinted eyes and protective motion, pushing his back so it’s facing San while he looks around for the source of that weirdly familiar noise. He knows what it is, he does! It’s something he’s very much into, but his brain short-circuits and he’s unable to find the right word. . . there it is! 

Yeosang pushes himself up onto a sitting position, his hands now reaching out to the sky where a drone just came out of nowhere. Well, it’s possibly not out of nowhere since he’s been hearing the noises for over a minute now. It’s odd. It made Yeosang stop jumping to reach for it, drowned in his own thoughts for a second.  _ Why is there a drone out of nowhere? Wouldn’t that mean there are people around to operate it- _

His arms jutted out all of a sudden, with himself having no control over his next course of action, and the drone just. . . drops. Right onto his hands. 

“Yeosang?” there is a voice. And the voice made him freeze, because. . . no. No fucking way. It just makes no sense at all if there is- there’s-

Yeosang turns his head around, slowly but steadily, and from the corner of his eyes he can make out a figure of a standing person right there, and he doesn’t need to see their face to know who it is since his voice is just all too familiar - but nothing makes sense! They  _ buried  _ him, they saw him drown in his own sickness and they left him behind a few months ago, and. . . and?

“Wooyoung?”

It is.

Yeosang’s eyes met the younger’s, and he looked double the times healthier compared to the last time San and Yeosang saw him, cradled him in their arms to give him the last bits of warmth they’ve got left before he breathed one last time. The younger cracked him a wide smile, and Yeosang feels as if his chest just got punched and his breath is taken away from him.

All of a sudden, he’s in a practice room.

Wooyoung is still standing there, waiting like a Sim processing an order before he bows down, all-too-enthusiastically. His hair bounces with him when he returns to his original stance and Yeosang flinches, looking around for San, who magically disappeared from behind him. He wants to shout out for San, he couldn’t leave him all alone in that cold and cloudy shore? What if the birds ate him? But he couldn’t. Nothing comes out from his throat, and he can’t move. The left side of his body feels tired and numb as if he’s been lying on that side for too long, and his field of vision is flooded with Wooyoung. His friend’s voice breaks into echoes, as if he’s talking in one of their concert domes into the microphone. What is he saying? Why is Wooyoung even  _ talking?  _ Isn’t he. . . dead?

“Hi!” he chirps, all too happily, but Yeosang took a moment to figure out what the younger is saying since the sound is all over the place. “My name is Jung Wooyoung. I’m 15-years-old, and I will be joining you all from now on.  _ Please take care of me.” _

Yeosang took a step back, though he’s almost sure he’s still unable to move. Fifteen? 

A sigh comes from behind him, and for once in this entire sequence, Yeosang is able to move. He whips his head around, eyes wide and curious as he takes in the appearance of a middle-aged man, holding pieces of stapled papers above an official looking table. Yeosang sees both of his parents beside him now, and they’re no longer in the practice room. This is getting a little scarier by the second, and Yeosang feels like crying. His throat is still tight and constricted, though, and he looks at the man’s outstretched arm, waiting for a handshake. “Well, Kang Yeosang,” the man says, looking into his eyes, the disappointment written clearly across his facial features, “I wish you good luck.”

And then Yeosang feels himself walking away, not turning back even once, even when he heard a cheerful voice call for him from afar as he got into a car and it drove away. Yeosang notices how his father shared a look with his mother, but they stayed quiet. Yeosang’s eyes are watery. He wants to reach out, he wants to ask them to shake him awake from this continuous nightmare, that he doesn’t want to see anyone else since he’ll miss them too much and he still needs to continue on living, preferably without any of their horrible memories gnawing on his mind, but he can’t move. He’s sitting there, frozen on the backseat of his parents’ car, until he’s not.

He’s in another building, looking up and about at the ceilings of KQ’s hallways while another middle aged man is leading him into a room filled with young men his age, standing within a line while nudging and throwing jokes at each other. Yeosang feels weak on the knee, his eyes falling on none other but his bandmates, looking a few years younger than he remembered them to be. Hongjoong is looking right into his eyes, and Yeosang fights with his entire might to give the older a hug, but he won’t fucking move. He stands still behind the man as he explains what Yeosang is doing there, and the time comes for him to introduce himself. His voice was different, and he felt a tinge of pain when Yunho and Mingi chimed in from the very end of the line that they were the same age, and that they would get along so well. San protested when the two forgot about him, and then faced Yeosang himself just to tell him that he’s also born in 1999. Yeosang felt the bottom of his lips quiver, and in one extraordinary moment, he managed to move one of his hands free from his sides, and they landed on San’s shoulder. The younger looks up at him, a little confused, but his smile is still decorating his features.

“S-San,” Yeosang stutters, and the dimpled man nods. “That’s it, that’s my name,” San continues, rubbing the back of his own neck.  _ Why are we here?  _ Yeosang wants to ask again, his shoulders sagging once he realizes his efforts are rendered useless once again. He’s unable to move a single muscle in his body except for his eyes, but they’re moving on their own.  _ How are they alive, San? _

Maybe Yeosang is going crazy, and maybe he’s imagining it right about now, but San looks at him right then and there, and Yeosang can see something different. Deeper than the fact that he looks five years younger right now, right in front of Yeosang. Deeper than the fact that he looks at Yeosang with the same interest and curiosity he’s always looked at Yeosang with, and something clicked in the older’s head when San’s voice comes echoing in the back of his head. 

_ Meet again, remember? _

And the rest goes on with a blur.

He gets to see Wooyoung again, strutting into the practice room like his previous memory, now a little more determined. He reminded Yeosang of their dream to stand on the stage together, to succeed together and to fail together, and Yeosang sees himself crying right after Wooyoung said that to him with the biggest smile on his face. And soon, they did.

Yeosang lets himself bathe in the warmth of smiling faces, everyone’s smiles that were etched into his mind forever as it passes by him in a flurry of memories, and each and every single smile calms his erratic heartbeat, one by one. One, where Hongjoong smiled a little shyly since Yeosang knocked on his studio’s door at three in the morning to deliver him warm ramen and water. Though it was not a healthy choice to make, it’s still something Hongjoong keeps in his mind and he’s grateful for. Another one, when Seonghwa smiled at him while petting his head after he helped the older walk to the bench on the back of the practice room after Seonghwa hurt his ankle from practicing a bit too much. One from Yunho, when he managed to prank Yeosang and made the younger curse louder than he’s ever spoken, a little bit right after Yeosang moved into their dorm. One when San giggled after Yeosang gave him his portion of the chicken he loved so much, an instance that made the younger claim that Yeosang is  _ definitely  _ in love with him. One when Mingi laughs at an underwear joke Yeosang made out of nowhere caused by simply his very much broken hearing, which caused the rest of them to clown Yeosang since he needs hearing aid, apparently. It’s not his fault his ears are clogged by their loud ass voices all day, but Yeosang didn’t say that at the time. One when Wooyoung is 101% sure that Yeosang isn’t a mafia in the mafia game and it made him laugh until he toppled over when he realizes that Yeosang was, indeed, the mafia. One from Jongho when Yeosang hurt his finger trying to break an apple, gave up, and resorted to just biting the heck out of that apple.

And then he’s on a stage.

Their stage outfits are shiny, and there are a sea of people in front of them, shouting and crying along with them as a sign of support. He can hear Hongjoong sobbing, trying to not show anyone the fact that he’s crying by distancing the microphone away from his head, but  _ they  _ can hear it. He’s thanking people for their support, and Yeosang can see the rest of his friends try their best in hiding their emotions by looking on the floor, their hands clenching each others’, and then Hongjoong is looking at them.

There’s something in there that Yeosang can’t figure out, but he’s sure of how fond of each and every one of his kids Hongjoong is. 

Yeosang blinks, trying to get rid of the tears in his eyes since he’s granted the chance to finally gauge in every single inch of his friends once again, but every time he blinks - he’s in a different place. Hongjoong was looking at them once, and he’s smiling, pained but proud. Tears were painting his cheeks and his smile lines, but then the next second, he’s leaning on a wall in a train station, barely alive enough to hold on until they have to say goodbye. Yeosang can feel the grip of their leader untightening around his palm, and he sees the glossy-eyes and the world Hongjoong holds behind them dimming slowly, the light fading from them as he took in every single one of his friends’ features to heart. He feels his throat dying in pain when the train moves and he does nothing to stop his sobs when he sees Hongjoong fade and fade into the darkness, and is replaced with Seonghwa.

Yeosang can still feel Seonghwa’s arms around his sides as they travel up to cup his face, and Seonghwa looks at him, sincerity drowning Yeosang in his eyes.  _ “Hyung, no,”  _ Yeosang feels himself talk, but it sounds dead inside, and he wants to scream. Seonghwa gave him a smile, the door of the carriage behind them almost breaking from the weight of the people trying to break in. “It’s okay, Sang,” Seonghwa gives him a quick peck on the forehead before he fades slowly like mist, “we’ll be okay.”

Yunho was petting Yeosang’s stomach, a habit the older one picked up from the fact that it usually calms Yeosang down, when he had panic attacks every other time before. Yeosang notices now, though, that something is bothering Yunho. He wonders why he didn’t notice it there before, but it’s all too late. It’s always too late.

“Would you like me to sing for you, Sang?” Yunho asks, a decibel lower than a whisper, and all Yeosang gave him as a reply was his eyes, looking into Yunho’s own. Yeosang doesn’t really want to know how he looked, back then, but Yunho sang - and he feels his heart wrenching in pain.  _ Are you okay, Yunho?  _ Yeosang asks, unable to move his lips. So he instead just looked at Yunho very intensely, hoping that the older would pick it up from where he’s sitting.  _ You’re losing hope, aren’t you? _

They were running.

Yeosang looks back at Mingi, who had conflicted emotions written all over his face. His eyebrows were furrowed, his eyes were still puffy from tears, and his lips were pursed in dilemma. And then he stopped, his eyes caught none other than Yeosang’s at the last few moments and he cracked the older a smile, saluting him playfully one last time before he turned around to  _ run  _ towards the plunderers with nothing but his bare hands. Yeosang heard his own voice calling for Wooyoung, and the younger’s lips pursed in anger. “I know, Sang, I know.”

Jongho was careful. He’s always been. That’s why he volunteered to walk in places his older friends aren’t so sure about, and would rather not risk, but he did it. Yeosang never judged. He also never took Jongho for someone so careless that he died ‘accidentally’ from walking on places he never should’ve walked on before. He’s also not mad if Jongho decided to take his own life, covered by the fact that he died in an accident just because he can’t take anymore. Yeosang is also unable to take any more, but he just can’t be a burden. He doesn’t want to sadden anyone further, and he’d stick around. Until the very end.

Until Wooyoung.

And even until San.

And then he’s back at the shore, where it all started. His eyes are trained on San’s face, still serene and quiet, now turning ashy grey and blue-ish. The sun is still up, shining on their faces and blinding Yeosang momentarily, and he realizes for a split second that he’s lying on his side, one of his hands underneath San’s rigid body and the other still hugging his friend close. San’s sleeve is clad in the blood Yeosang has been coughing out, and the sound of waves hitting the shore is lulling Yeosang closer and closer to the sleep he’s been craving for months now. 

When he opens his eyes again, he knows exactly who he wants to see.

-

_ Do you know how people say that you will see your entire life flashing before your eyes, approximately seven seconds before your death? _

-

A group of little boys are laughing, their eyes sparkling underneath the bluish sun and the purple star. Their feet take them somewhere they’re supposed to go, some place where history preceded their existence. Some place where the flowers dance to a song, somewhere they should be.

The shore is empty, save for a few crows. 

“Oh, look!” one of the boys said, after zoning out to look at a particular spot for too long. “These are two human bones!”

“You’re right,” the other chirps, leaning over it, curious. “I wonder why they were placed here.”

Another one hums, looking at the calm water. 

“I wonder, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> and there's that.


End file.
